


Jabberwocky

by XmagicalX (Xparrot)



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Dreams, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Surreal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-02-05
Updated: 1999-02-05
Packaged: 2017-10-09 06:17:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/83921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xparrot/pseuds/XmagicalX
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Do you believe in dreams?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jabberwocky

**Author's Note:**

> I rarely write fic based on songs or poems...and soon you'll understand why. But last semester my chorus group was singing "Jabberwocky" (a composer, Sam Pottle, put it to music; it's actually a lot of fun!), thus I was saying/singing/thinking the words quite a lot, and it always has been one of my favorite poems. So I started this, and found I couldn't let it go until it was done.
> 
> If you know the poem, you'll understand what I mean when I say this is weird. If you don't know it—don't worry, you're not going crazy, it's not supposed to make sense, and neither is this exactly, but I hope you enjoy it all the same...and away we go!

### "Twas brillig..."

"Jim?" He knew that tone. Invariably it preceded a deeply philosophical inquiry, one that he would shrug off and then be kept awake the whole night pondering.

Ah well. Such was the price of sharing rooms with an anthropologist plus police observer and incidental best friend. "Yeah?"

"Do you believe in dreams?"

Frowning, Jim turned to his partner. "What do you mean?" Trying his damndest to sound noncommittal.

"Like, what do you think of them? When we dream, is it just like a VCR in the back of our mind, pop in a random tape of the day and fast-forward? Or is it our subconscious coming through, you know, Freud and all, cigars and phallic symbols? Or is it deeper? Like Jung's archetypal symbols and mass consciouses, communal dreaming? Even precognition? Deja vu and out-of-body experiences and previews of Fate? Are our dreams real, in ways we don't understand, are they signals of something beyond ourselves, greater than ourselves?"

All the question marks were beginning to confuse the hell out of him. "Chief, what brought this on?"

"Oh, you know." He shrugged. "Just wondering. I mean, wouldn't it be fascinating if dreams were our way of tapping into other worlds or something? Like, when we dream, we're actually living lives elsewhere, other dimensions, lives every bit as real as the one we're in now only we don't remember when we 'wake up'?"

Jim shivered before he could help himself, laughed it off. "Oh, yeah, there's some dreams I'd _love_ for that to be true." He paused. "On the other hand, living a real nightmare wouldn't exactly be my first choice."

"I know. I'd hate to be lecturing in the nude for real no matter what dimension I'm in!" Blair grinned. "And you couldn't just wake up if it were actually happening. All the same it's interesting to consider, isn't it?"

Whatever you say, Chief. Just don't think too hard about your nightmares. How could he so easily shrug them off? Perhaps because unlike Jim he hadn't been awake to hear his screams, following Lash's abduction, and the Golden overdose, and a few other incidents better unremembered. If anything, Blair's dreams were a sort of catharsis, a way for him to deal with all the horrors and tensions and disasters that rolled off his waking back like so much water.

As far as Jim's own mental condition went—"I've had dreams that have been real. I don't know in the way you mean, but the panther, the jaguar..." The wolf...

"Yeah." Blair nodded vigorously. "I was wondering if you were thinking of those. But I don't think that they're in the same category; they're not dreams so much as visions, spirit journeys. Psychological or spiritual, you aren't exactly asleep when you have them. No REM."

How can you know? When you haven't been present...but he deferred to his Guide's judgment. "If you say so. I'd have to say no, then."

"What?"

"No, I don't believe in dreams. I've got too much to worry about in this world to be concerned with what might be going on in some other, according to you." With a smile to make it clear his words weren't an attack on idea or man.

Not that Blair would ever take it as one. "Still, think about your last dream. Don't you wonder—"

"No." Sharper than he intended. "Look, Chief, how about instead of talking about dreams we go and have some instead?"

"Come on, man, it's not that late—"

"Early to bed and early to rise..."

"Makes a guy slow, and blind in the eyes," Blair muttered. "Not that you'd have to worry about that last."

"I'll also pretend I didn't hear any of that. G'night."

"Good night. Sleep well. Bon nuit. Pleasant dreams. All that stuff." Blair waved to him. Then frowned at his partner's back. So he wasn't going to talk about it even in a round-about way.

Not that Blair was surprised. Best friend or not Jim wasn't one to spill his guts, even when his problems were serious, medically diagnosable, and physical. When it came to the psychological you'd get more cooperation out of a brick wall.

The sudden image of such a wall on a psychiatrist's couch forced him to realize that perhaps Jim was right; it was time to turn in. Awfully early, but then he hadn't slept well of late. More to the point, Jim hadn't slept well.

Four times in as many days Blair had woken in the middle of the night to hear small slight whimpering noises coming from the bedroom above. He barely knew why they disturbed him, they were so soft. But like a mother with a fretful child he snapped awake the moment they reached his ears.

The first time he tried to ignore it, rolled over and went back to sleep, only to be roused again throughout the night. He didn't even know what they were, thought perhaps a pipe was squeaking. Rats in the walls. Maybe a family of baby birds had nested outside, unknown to them. He mentioned it to Jim the following morning but to his surprise the Sentinel had heard nothing.

The next night he tried to convince himself he was dreaming or hallucinating or somehow imagining the sound. It didn't work. At last he gave up and crept through the dark loft, searching for the source.

He found it, curled up in Jim's bed. His partner, arms wrapped around himself in a loose fetal position, sleeping face strangely blank and emitting those terrible low whines. Almost as if he were wheezing, but he would pause for a minute and breath normally before resuming again. A couple minutes after Blair had watched him he quieted.

Only to begin again an hour later. Blair made no attempt to be quiet as he stomped up the stairs, but Jim didn't stir. Concerned, the Guide called his name. No response. At last he resorted to shaking him, but the Sentinel didn't react, didn't wake up, didn't stop his cries. He quieted many minutes later, when he drifted from REM into deeper levels of sleep.

Thoroughly frightened, Blair tried again, and this time Jim heard him, blearily opened his eyes. "Blair? What's wrong?"

"N-nothing," he stuttered. Tongue-tied and he didn't know why. "Jim, were you having a nightmare?"

"No. I don't think so. I can't remember." Jim put his hands over his eyes. "Chief, can you turn off that light and let me get back to sleep? We can talk tomorrow."

Obediently Blair switched off the overhead. "Thanks," his partner mumbled. Then—"You're sure everything's all right?"

"Yeah." He hesitated only a moment. "Yeah, I think so. Sorry about that."

"'S not a problem." And he had dozed off.

The rest of the night passed without incident. Of course in the morning he hadn't wanted to talk about it, except to tease Blair about midnight encounters and mothering complexes. He insisted there was nothing to talk about; he couldn't remember a single dream. For whatever reasons Blair was wary of telling him just why he was so persistent in his questions, and the conversation soon moved on.

Except the next night Jim whimpered again, and this time even when he was silent and deep asleep he wouldn't wake. Blair paced in his room. Tried shaking him, shouting at him, even slapping him, all to no effect. A dozen times he nearly called the hospital. Twice he picked up the phone, only to set it down again. In the morning, if Jim was still caught in this half-present state, then he would call.

But if he awoke normally...something else was going on here. It wasn't physical. And he didn't think it was psychological. Why, he couldn't say, except that Jim was the Sentinel, the guardian of the tribe, and aware of more than any ordinary man could sense. Seeing and hearing and discerning what no others could. Why couldn't those abilities extend beyond the physical perceptions, into senses wholly undeveloped in most people?

A fascinating hypothesis. Naomi would be proud. His dissertation advisor would probably give up on him there and then. Ah, the dilemmas of being a scientist of humanity.

The next morning Jim awoke as normal, surprised and a little irritated to find Blair in his room staring at him with a worried furrow in his brow. And he still remembered nothing.

Tonight, if tonight he still cried out, Blair would do something about it. Jim wasn't talking; whether it was because he wouldn't or he couldn't explain he didn't know, but he would find out. He didn't care what it took, he was going to wake Jim from whatever monster tortured his dreams of late and slay the beast. Lay it to rest once and for all.

Then maybe he could get a full night's sleep. At least until finals rolled around.

He hit the pillow knowing that he wouldn't sleep for too many hours. What surprised him was not the awakening but how it happened.

A low growl in his ear.

He jerked awake. Actually he shot out of bed and was halfway across the room groping for his lamp—not for its light, but the base was a solid chunk of black marble. There weren't many living things that would remain that way after he had slammed it into their skulls.

It occurred to him as an afterthought that he was behaving overly and rather foolishly aggressive toward a dream. Sheepishly he began to lower the lamp, then dropped it in shock when a voice hissed in his ear, "Rescue the Sentinel."

"What?" He whirled, but of course there was only a wall behind him. Not so much as a picture or a mask to speak to him.

"Rescue..." the wind outside seemed to echo the voice.

He didn't need another hint. The loft was silent, no whimpers or other cries, but he wasted no time tearing up the stairs, slamming open his partner's door.

No response, not so much as an angry grumble at his interruption. Jim was stretched out on his bed, hadn't even made it under the covers. He wasn't moving or crying out.

On closer inspection, Blair realized he wasn't breathing, either.

"Oh damn, don't do this to me—" He shot across the room, pressed his fingers to Jim's throat and then put his head to his chest. No pulse. No heartbeat. He was warm but he wasn't living.

For an instant his mind went entirely blank, and when the fugue cleared he found himself holding the phone, frantically dialing, quick, what's the number for nine-one-one?

It rang, or maybe he got a busy signal, and he was screaming at the inanimate receiver, "What the _hell_ man, get me through, somebody's dying my partner's dying I'm with the police answer me! Help him! Help me!"

And someone answered. A low dark form, four-footed, black or maybe gray, golden-eyed and low-voiced. "Would you save him?"

"Yes!" shouted so loudly the window panes rattled in their frames.

"Then go." The animal lowered its massive head and slipped out the door. He almost followed it but turned instead to Jim.

In time to see his skeleton crumple to dust, gray sand scattered across the soft white purity of his sheets.

###  _"Beware the Jabberwock..."_

Couldn't be. No. He felt his world crack apart around him, shattered into a thousand fragments, so much glittering dust. Fractured like a fly's vision, every element separate and distinct but refusing to unite in his mind to form a meaningful whole.

Oblivious to his broken state the doctor droned on. "...all we could. The damage to the frontal lobe is too substantial to even attempt repairs. The physical injuries will heal, and autonomic functions should not cease when life support is removed, but there is no chance Mr. Sandburg will regain consciousness..."

How? How could this have happened, this morning, only this morning Blair had been in his room, shouting something about death and nightmares—he had had a vision. He insisted it was real, but Jim was familiar with his panicked condition. Had gripped his arms firmly, "Blair, I'm right here, Chief. I swear, I'm not dead."

Blair had pulled away. Shook himself, "Sorry. Sorry, man, just—that was an intense dream. Too real. Sorry." He hadn't gone into the specifics, instead headed downstairs to whip up breakfast. Must have still been in shock a little, because for the first time in four days Jim didn't have to put up with questions about dreams, nightmares, REM, or anything else that might occur while he slept.

He had gone to his class, and Jim had been at the station finishing up some paperwork when the call came in. Two calls, one to the main desk forwarded to him—"Watch this, detective," hissed the unfamiliar voice; and simultaneously his celphone had rung, "Uh, Jim, I'm in a little situation..."

Twenty minutes later the bomb squad was gathered at the Rainier campus and Jim was still speaking with his partner over their tenuous link, "No, man, I don't know where I am. A basement somewhere. My legs are tied up, but I've been working at them—" Sudden snap. "That's better. I'm free now, Jim. God, it's dark in here..."

He stumbled through the room, muttering exotic curses on whoever had done this. Jim's own oaths were less creative but more violently oriented. He tried to discern his partner's location, but the only signals of him came through the cellular. Was he even on the campus—

"Found something," Blair's words interrupted his search. Not a surprising revelation—his pulse had skyrocketed. "It's...holy—Jim, it's a bomb, there's a hell of a lot of C-4 here, wires—an LED display," the phone buzzed static as he crouched, "looks like a timer..."

"What does it say?" When there was no answer, "Sandburg, what does it say?"

"Three seconds." The voice a mere whisper. "Two seconds. One. Zero."

A sharp crack and the line went dead. The earth shuddered slightly under his feet with the muffled explosion.

"NO!" but his scream was too late to be heard by time or fate.

He looked past the murmuring doctor now, to the body lying under the white sheets, bandages wrapped around the ruined skull, respirator hissing as it breathed for him. His partner, no longer his partner, never more to stand by his side or wait in the truck or laugh at his jokes. Blair Sandburg dead, gone, absent, leaving only his shell behind him in memory.

No. It couldn't be. His heart still beating its accustomed rhythm in his bruised and wrapped chest; his lungs still inflating with mechanical assistance. Too soon to abandon hope; there was time yet to pray for miracles.

But deep inside he knew that eventually he must accept the truth.

 

* * *

"No!" Blair screamed, out of shock more than fear or horror or anger. Hallucination, vision, imagination, babbled his mind, in reality such terrifying fantasy could not occur—

"'Chief?" Familiar voice, hands on his shoulders, shaking him. "Blair, hey, wake up, relax. It's okay, buddy."

He blinked. Jim's blue eyes regarding him with annoyed concern, teasing smile covering his anxiety. "That better have been some nightmare, Sandburg, to justify shrieking like that in the middle of the night."

"I..." He gulped for breath, reached inside himself and established a passable equilibrium. "It...it was. I—I dreamed you were dead..." And disintegrating, though he didn't think Jim would appreciate hearing how quickly he had decomposed in his partner's mixed-up mind.

The Sentinel raised his eyebrows as it was, remarked, "Yeah, I know that'd distress _me_ at least." With a hint of care in the joking tone, "Everything okay now?"

He exhaled shakily, mustered a grin from the depths of his self and hoped it wasn't too sickly. "Sure, yeah, I mean, seeing how the reports of it were greatly exaggerated." Jim's rolled eyes made it clear that Mark Twain was not appreciated early mornings. "Guess I'll be getting back to sleep now," he said, casting one final look at his definitely-living partner before walking out.

"Hope you get at least a couple more hours," Jim called to him as he started downstairs, "it is a big day, after all."

Blair frowned at that as he climbed back under the covers. Something going on that he had forgotten? He had planned to give a pop quiz in his intro course, but considering Jim was as unaware of that as his students were it—besides, it was hardly a major event. A pressing engagement? Had he forgotten a date, perhaps?

It was too late and he was too tired to worry over obligations. He'd surely recall whatever it was when he awoke. With that somewhat less-than-comforting thought he drifted to sleep.

His alarm jerked him from sleep a scant few hours. Blinking at the clock he swore, tumbled out of bed and scrambled into his clothes. Late, late, could he make it to Rainier in five minutes? Probably not—his students were safe from the quiz, it seemed—

"Whoa." Jim intercepted him on the way to the kitchen to grab the essential cup of coffee. "What's the rush?"

"Late—class—overslept—"

"Sandburg." He slowed at that exasperated tone. Jim folded his arms and looked down at his partner. "You don't have class today, you know that."

"What? I don't?" Quickly he accessed his mental calendar—yes, it definitely was a Wednesday, no, it was not a holiday, yes, he had an eight o'clock class scheduled. Yes it was five of eight. "Yes I do, outa the way, Jim, I gotta move—"

"Blair." Jim put his hands on his shoulders, physically halting him. Shook him a little. "No, you don't. Plane ticket? Borneo? Dr. Stoddard? Is any of this ringing a bell?"

"What? No? Wait—" On his bedstand, how could he have forgotten? The United Airlines envelope, one way to Honolulu. Eli Stoddard's letter last week, the indefinite extension of his study, his suggestion, the struggle of the decision..."Oh God." He sat down suddenly on the couch. "Oh man, today's the day. What was I—"

"It's okay." Jim came up behind him, started to massage his shoulders. "Good grief, Sandburg, did you sleep like this? You're wound tighter than Carolyn before a meeting with the DA."

"Comparing me with the ex? Not a good sign, Jim," he teased automatically, but he couldn't tear his mind fully from the situation. "But just now—I mean, I'm embarking on a major career course and I put it completely out of my head? What the hell is wrong with me?"

"You're a bit tense." Jim grimaced. "Okay, you're a whole lot tense. I hardly think it's surprising. You're the one with the psych degree, but this can't be that unnatural—some kind of denial. Nerves. Everybody gets them."

"I know. It's just, man, it was like I was on another planet or something for a second there." He found himself relaxing under his partner's ministrations. "That feels great. Thanks."

The rubbing changed to an equally soothing pounding. "Blair, seriously, this is the last minute—you sure about this? That you want to go?"

"Of course I got to find out about this talent the day I leave." More seriously, "Yeah, Jim. I am sure. This is such a major opportunity, something like this comes along once in a lifetime—fully funded anthropological research, for as long as it's necessary, even government-supported...it's a dream come true." He twisted around to look his partner in the eyes. "But I need to know you're okay with this, man. Are _you_ sure?"

"I already told you so," Jim answered quietly. "It's your life, and I don't want to stop you from doing something so wonderful—I've heard you talk about Dr. Stoddard, and his research. This could be the best thing that ever happened to you—you think I want to interfere with that?"

"Of course not." Something hidden in Jim's eyes, shaded; he was used to seeing the other man's soul in the blue depths. Now he saw only his own reflection. "But I am your partner. With the police and with this whole Sentinel thing. It's important, man. I know that." His eyes slid away. He did understand. But he'd already made his decision, already bought the ticket. Borneo, the jungle, studying first-hand what he'd only read about before. Putting his education to real use, instead of muddling along trying to figure out the rules of a world not his own.

"We've gotten it worked out already," Jim assured him. "With Brown promoted to lieutenant Rafe's going to be absent a partner anyway, and you know we don't get along _that_ badly. And I'll watch the senses thing. You've taught me enough techniques I should manage all right, and Simon can help with that." He patted his shoulder. "It's not like you're going to Mars here; the world's gotten pretty small. We both can read and write, we'll keep in touch. Maybe vacation next year I'll take a flight over, you can show me the sights."

"Yeah, sure. That'd be fun." He tried to muster some enthusiasm, imagining that future, hiking through the jungle with Jim, pointing out landmarks commonplace to him, unique to his friend. Another opportunity to watch a Sentinel work in a natural environment, his senses honed, instincts refined...

What about his work here in the city, though, in _his_ native environment, his true duties? "Jim..."

"Chief." Precisely echoing his tone. "Everything will be fine."

He would, he knew that. And if things didn't work out here—he could always come back.

Only how would he know? Jim was all gung-ho on this—he wouldn't be changing his mind. He might keep in touch as he said, but if there were problems Blair wouldn't hear of them; if there was a reason for him to come back he'd never know...

"Come on, Chief. You've only got an hour," reminded Jim. "We better head out."

He sat in the passenger seat of the truck, fingering the straps of his backpack, the other bag at his feet. So little luggage, so much he had to leave behind. Jim would keep it for him, though. In case he ever needed it again.

His partner drove, quietly, not a brooding silence but the comfortable nonverbal companionship of close friends. He'd miss that. But he'd be meeting new people; Dr. Stoddard was already a friend and he'd always been able to make new ones easily. And like Jim said, it wasn't like Borneo was another planet, he wasn't dying here...

Jim, dying on his bed, then dead—what a nightmare that had been. Had it been a warning? Mentally he shook his head, get a grip, Sandburg. You're about to embark on the next leg of the journey of your life, you've already exhibited cold feet, it'd be stranger if you hadn't had some dreams about it. Premonitions are a combination of nerves and chance; they don't mean anything.

What if Jim zoned? He'd come out of it—but what if on a case? What if Rafe noticed (did it matter if he found out?) or worse, what if a criminal took advantage of it? He could gun him down—but Jim would be careful. And he hadn't zoned in months now, even a little.

The truth of the matter was, Blair had had increasingly less to do anyway. Maybe a Sentinel didn't need a Guide after all, just a teacher, and once the lessons were over he'd only need a partner out in the field. Rafe was a good man and a trained cop besides; he'd back up Jim better than Blair had even been able to. He could wield a gun at least.

This would work out for the best for all involved. He'd already decided; now he found the confirmation for that decision. Jim was fine with it, he'd still be a friend, just not a partner. The Sentinel could still protect Cascade, and Blair could study anthropology for real instead of struggling with a thesis barely accepted by his colleagues. The best choice for his career—hell, the best choice for his life. No heroin dealers in Borneo, no serial killers, no mad bombers. Only a fascinating people in a fascinating land, and he could build a reputation with what he could learn from them.

By the time they parked in the airport and he climbed out with his bags, began hunting for the appropriate terminal, he was smiling again. The cold rain couldn't get his spirits down—it'd be warm and sunny where he was heading, no more putting up with Washington's lousy excuse for a climate. Jim grinned and rolled his eyes at that comment, then pointed, "Over there, that looks like your flight."

They said their good-byes, shook hands firmly and he handed his ticket to the pretty stewardess by the entrance. As he boarded something streaked across his vision, a dark blur. Black cat crossing his path, but he missed the significance of the omen, caught in something else. The panther, the black panther, growling at him, and suddenly he had to know. Abruptly he turned, fought his way back to the entrance. Jim still stood there, frowning slightly in confusion. "What the hell, Chief?"

He was gasping, had to fight to catch his breath, and only a couple minutes before the plane departed. "Jim, sorry, before I go, I forgot to ask. Last night, last night did you see it? Hear it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Sorry—your spirit guide? Did you sense your spirit guide? I think it came to me, I have to know why—"

"What are you talking about?"

Blair glanced back at the gate, the stewardess watching him, tapping her foot impatiently. "The black panther," he said hurriedly. "I just want to know if you saw it, I need to know what it means..."

"Why would I see a panther, Chief?"

This wasn't Jim Ellison, that was the first thought that passed through his mind, and then the world turned upside down and inside out, disorienting him so he tripped though he didn't move, started to fall. Jim caught his arm, held him upright, but it wasn't Jim, and this wasn't Cascade's airport, and he sure the hell had never decided to go join Eli Stoddard in Borneo—he hadn't heard from the doctor in over a year.

"You're going to miss your plane, Chief," Jim advised urgently.

"To hell with the plane, what plane, what's going on?" he cried. Then steadied himself, realizing how many people now were staring at him, not the least Jim, who seemed not angry but worried, understandably so. He had never witnessed his partner having a nervous breakdown before; it was a new experience, and Jim never was the best at handling those. For his sake Blair took a deep breath and relaxed. "Jim, I'm not getting on that plane. I'm not going to Borneo. I've changed my mind."

"Sandburg..." For a split second Blair was positive he was going to launch into a Bogart impersonation—'Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon...' Instead Jim asked, "Why? We have this all planned out. It'll be fine."

"You keep saying that, man. You want it to work for me. And I'm grateful, I am, but the truth is, I'm your partner. I'm your Guide, Jim. You can't just ship me off to Borneo, it doesn't work that way. You're tied to these senses by your genes, but you chose to accept the responsibility that they implied; you chose to be a Sentinel. And I chose, too. The first time I decided not to join Dr. Stoddard. We're in this together, for better or worse, for as far and as long as it goes. And you know that's the case as well as I do."

"Chief, these are just last minute jitters. Get going before that plane leaves without you—"

"I'm your Guide, I'm your partner, and I'm staying." When Jim began shaking his head, anger beginning to show on his face, not frustration, not anxiety, but real, abnormal rage, he knew he was right.

"Go," Jim ordered.

"No!" Blair shouted his defiance, and the universe exploded around him.

###  _"He took his vorpal sword in hand..."_

"We got him." Brown's voice was shaking with barely suppressed rage. Blair might have been Jim's partner, but he was friend and fellow to every man in Major Crimes. They had been too late to stop the attack. The least they could do was bring the bastard responsible down.

Not without Jim, though. He needed this, more than anything now, needed the faintest release, any way to blur the pain.

They tracked the trace evidence left at the scene, narrowed it down to the warehouse district, then made some discreet calls, put together the accumulated clues and located the party responsible. Jim was not part of this; the investigation was too close to home for him to be effective.

He wondered if he'd ever be a detective again. When his partner lay in the white bed, never to move again.

Never a Sentinel again. Not without a Guide.

Too soon, still too soon. He sat by the bed and talked, wondering if any of his words could even be heard, but having to fill the silence since Blair was no longer able to. Blair had hated silence in some ways; he could appreciate unspoken communication, but he needed energy, action, excitement, never content with a static world, always having to put it in motion.

Ironic that he would now and always be fixed in place.

So Jim talked, to give him even that slightest semblance of vicarious animation. Never stopping to consider he might be beyond even that. Hanging onto whatever belief he could, that Blair could still hear him. That Blair would still hear him, and consider returning, impossible though they said that was.

For the first time in so long though he was not at the hospital, not by his partner's bed now. Instead ranged with other officers outside the warehouse, fingers clenched around the grip of his gun, listening as the operation's head shouted with electronic enhancement, "Come out with your hands raised!"

He came, with his hands down, pumping the shotgun and blasting into their midst. Jim didn't need to think, his actions automatic, aim, steady, pull the trigger; once, twice, three times the gun jerked in his hand. Scarlet bursts on the man's chest, his ruined body falling backward, eyes staring blankly at the morning sky. As empty as Blair's would be, when they removed the bandages. Reflecting back to Jim the void filling him.

They all approached, circled the body with some caution. It jerked once, spastically, reflex of a corpse whose soul has already fled. He knew the face, recalled with grim clarity the last time he had seen Frank Rachins, when the man was still alive, expression twisted with hate as he was shoved into the cruiser on his way to prison.

There had been an infinite moment in that time, when he heard the explosion in the elevator shaft, that he had thought Blair dead. Impossible to express the relief he had felt upon learning he had survived, intact and none the worse for wear outside of an understandable claustrophobia. He couldn't have described to Blair what it meant to him, that he still lived. So he hadn't tried, not even as much as given thanks to whatever fate had blessed them.

No chance now. And there was nothing left for him to be grateful for.

He didn't care that he had killed Rachins; it didn't mean anything to him. They took his gun and confiscated his badge for the moment; did it matter if they returned it?

Brown next to him, Brown who had called him to this bust, though he shouldn't have been allowed to come. "You did it, man," grimly but triumphant. Took Jim by the shoulders. "Listen to me, it's over. The son of a bitch is never going to court, he'll never escape from prison again, he'll never hurt anyone else. You did it, you got him." More words than one usually heard from H all day.

Jim shook his head, tried to tell himself it mattered, couldn't believe it. Rafe touched his arm, tried to meet his eyes. "Hey, Jim, we're so sorry, we're so sorry, man." The detective was crying, not obviously but tears were bright in his eyes.

Tears on Joel's face, back in the hospital, sitting in Jim's own seat and watching Blair while his partner exacted meaningless revenge. He rose when Ellison entered, respectfully stepped back, wiping at his face. "God, Jim, oh God..." Stood over his shoulder for a moment, still watching as if he couldn't tear his eyes away, and whispered, "I was trying to talk to him like you were doing, but he's so quiet...you look, and you see there's nothing there."

Jim turned to him sharply, knowing how furious his eyes must glare, but Joel only shook his head sorrowfully. "I'm so sorry," he echoed Rafe. "I know how this feels..." Joel who had lost a brother to war, a partner to the more private battles in this city. He could sympathize.

Now he rambled on, "I know what it's like, you can stay with him now, you should, until you're ready. But you have to say good-bye eventually, step back and wish them on their way and go on your own way here, the best you can. It gets easier, I know you won't believe that now, but it does. And eventually you can look back, and remember, and love him again for what you did get to do together..." As if they were long over and long past and unrecoverable.

Joel could offer sympathy but he couldn't understand, he had never been a Sentinel, knew what it was to lose a loved one but never had he been torn from half his spirit. How do you live with that, can you ever, continue on with only part of yourself?

He had to, he had no choice. But for now he could sit by his bed and wish with all he had left that it was otherwise.

 

* * *

"Hey, Chief, what's wrong?" Strong hands gripping his shoulder. "You all right there?"

"What?" He was standing in the bedroom—in Jim's bedroom. Jim in front of him, frowning in concern. "Where—" Dream, Sandburg, get a grip, it was just a dream. But why...

"Why are you in here?" His partner beat him to the punch.

"I—I--" Groping for an explanation, and finally he recalled it through the mists of the last nightmare. "Just wanted to see if you were okay."

His face softened. "I'm fine, I'm fine, Blair. Get back to bed." He hesitated, then went on, "I know this is the wrong time to ask, but is there any chance you could come to the station with me tomorrow?"

"I—" He had a class. But there was almost a pleading note in Jim's voice; this meant something to him, though he couldn't guess what. "Sure. All right. Just remind me to call in tomorrow morning."

"I will...thanks, Sandburg." The indecipherable element in his tone Blair made no attempt to figure out now; whatever it was could wait until after a full night's sleep.

Strange, the station felt, though. Dark somehow, as if the rain clouds outside had entered the halls, ready to soak everyone. They hung thickest over Major Crimes, muffling everyone, turning the mood somber, grim. He would have tried cracking a joke but the atmosphere affected him as well, drew him down into its depths.

And Simon wasn't in his office. Blair was surprised to see the woman behind his desk—"Finkleman? What's she doing here?" Not that he didn't like her, but he had been expecting Captain Banks.

"She's the temp," Jim explained in an undertone. "Though the word around the station is that they're going to give it to her permanently...could be worse, but—"

The lady in question chose that moment to lean out her door and call, "Detective Ellison, if I could speak to you for a moment—" When they both started toward her, she added, "In private," with an apologetic nod in Blair's direction.

Jim sighed and complied; Blair went and sat at his desk, waiting. No one around to talk to; those present didn't seem especially chatty. One could almost feel the weight in the air, psychologically stifling. If he grasped it better perhaps he could have dispelled it.

The rattle of the captain's door slamming startled him from his meandering thoughts. Jim marched over to his desk and stood before it, staring down at his partner, a tic in his clenched jaw.

The one emotion Ellison never bothered to hide was anger. "What's wrong?" Blair asked quietly.

"We—she—" He visibly brought himself under control. "We have a problem, Chief." Forcing lightness and not really succeeding. "They want to pull your ride-along again, but more extensively—after everything that's happened they want me partnered with someone with a badge and gun, and they want civilians as far out of the line of fire as it's possible to get right now."

"What—"

"We'll fight this, of course, we'll try—but the captain says she doesn't think there's much leeway here. Not now. She is on our side, though, Blair. And she's good. I just..." He caught his breath, lowered his head so as to not look his partner in the eye, "I wish Simon were here..."

"Why—" He almost choked on the words, unable to believe what he had nearly asked. As if for a moment he had forgotten....

"What?"

"Why'd it have to happen this way? Why did..." He couldn't go on.

"I don't know, I don't know, Chief. They never could tell me that, not in the army, not here on the force—-people die, good men are killed, and I don't know why, I don't even know if there is a reason. It happens. That's all I know. And we have to go on despite it."

The funeral had been the saddest occasion he had ever been present for. Row and rows of people in somber attire, the women crying silently, the men with jaws clenched tight to keep their eyes dry. It wasn't the first service he had been to, but never had it been for someone so close, a friend of several years. And never a cop's funeral—that made it worse. He could almost feel the rage beneath the grief, seething anger in the hearts of the captain's co-workers. In all the men of Major Crimes. In his partner. In himself.

It had been so stupid, not an accident but it might have been. They had caught the guy only a day after the shooting—before he had even died. Just a stupid kid, angry for his brother's incarceration, determined to take it out on one of the men responsible. Well, he had, on a Saturday morning, opened fire when the captain had gone out to get the paper. Two hours after they brought the bastard into custody Simon had passed away. He hadn't even woken up.

It made the anger all the worse, that there was no real target for it once the trial was over. So they were cracking down on the rest. Trying desperately to make up for it by securing the safety of those alive. And attempting to ensure that no civilians were injured.

"This is wrong, man," he muttered. "This is so wrong—I'm your partner, Jim! You need me out there!"

"I know. But Blair, you have to understand, they need to do something. Recoup their losses somehow. And..." He hesitated before letting the other shoe drop, "this might not be such a bad thing."

"What?"

"Chief, hear me out. What happened—it proves how dangerous this can be. For you to even work with me, let alone be out there by my side. If something happened to you—I don't want to deal with it, okay? We've had close calls before, one slip-up and I could lose you."

"And if I'm not out there to make sure _you_ don't slip up, I could lose you!" Blair reminded him.

He knew the ire in Jim's eyes wasn't really meant for him. "I managed without you before!" Visibly calming himself, "Blair, you've taught me enough, I think I can manage. You'll still be around; if I need the assistance I can go to you—you can still be an observer. Just not in the field."

"This is as bad as my dream—" he hissed to himself, and then blinked. It was. Exactly like it in feeling if not the particulars, something pushing him away from his partner's side, and Jim complying, however reluctantly...he said he would fight it, but he wasn't sounding like he meant it. "Jim, have you had any dreams...did you know this was coming?"

"I suspected it might be," Jim agreed with a sigh. Then frowned. "But dreams—I told you, I haven't been remembering them. The panther didn't come to me last night to tell me it was quitting time, if that's what you meant."

He remembered his spirit guide. This was Jim. Sandburg, what the hell's up with you..."Where was Daryl at the funeral? I don't remember seeing him there."

Jim looked utterly baffled at the non sequitur. "What?"

"Daryl? Simon's son?" Blair prompted.

"Uh—he was there. Right in front of us. With his mother. You remember?"

"No!" If he thought back, he might be able to. A foggy recollection, Joan in a black dress, even a veil, and Daryl at her side, trying to sit straight though he was shaking holding back the sobs. A shifting image, what had he been wearing? A dark suit, or a black sweater, or a tux—like a dream, nothing fixed, nothing clear. Exactly like the memory of a dream. "No, I don't remember, and I should, that was only a week ago, wasn't it? Or was it only a couple of days?" People glancing at his shout; Captain Finkleman behind the glass windows separating her office looking up from her desk with a frown. She couldn't fight to keep him here, not like Simon could have.

"Sandburg—Blair, calm down," Jim whispered, concern in his expression. He reached out for Blair's shoulder.

Blair shoved him back. "No, man, I don't know what's going on here, until I figure it out—" The others were starting to gather around him, none of them angry, only worried. He was cracking up, that's what he read in all their faces. Having a nervous breakdown, well, if you gotta go, go with style. "Simon's not dead, and none of this is real—"

"I understand, Chief, I know it feels like this is the better way—" Jim began.

"And you aren't Jim Ellison, so lay off! What's your father's name? Do you remember my mother's name?" At the fleeting confusion that flowed across his face, "Do you remember Naomi, she wasn't here too long ago—but you don't, do you, you don't remember my mother, because you never met her. You're not my partner! You don't know me! "

"Just take a deep breath, Blair, please, just calm down—" Jim tried to tell him.

"Not until I figure this out!" Jim reached out his hand. He blocked it, "Stop it!" And everything fell away.

###  _"And as in uffish thought he stood..."_

Were it not for the windows he wouldn't even know what time of day it was. The shades were drawn but sunlight glimmered around the edges during the day, dying in the greenish gleam of the florescent lights. At night all was dark and the halls outside were quieter.

Through the closed door he could hear footsteps, usually going past, quick taps of someone rushing to their destination and the measured paces of less urgent people. Occasionally they would stop by the door, open it and enter. Sometimes nurses or doctors, other times people he knew, trying to talk to him, their empty voices echoing through the hard tiled corners of the room.

He could hear every distinct resonance. His hearing, his sight, every sense still as powerful as ever. His abilities mocked him; what use were they, with no one to guide them, no one to measure and test and evoke their full potential?

He could hear Blair's heartbeat, steady but slow, slower even than when he slept. A sleep he would never awaken from, and one day it would stop. Soon, perhaps, the doctors said, but they couldn't be sure. Medical science can only do so much, they told him in faintly guilty tones, not knowing what else to say.

Even the people he knew, his friends, lost words when he looked at them. They would trail off uncertainly, finally rise and leave again. He couldn't pay attention to their words, concentrating as he was on his partner's pulse. The monitors beeped a soft counterpoint but it was the actual rhythm he focused on. Knowing it wouldn't change, hoping all the while it would. If he slept it was because the regularity lulled him into it, and when he awoke he was never aware of the rest.

Footsteps outside again, a patter he almost recognized. They stopped by his room, the oiled hinges barely whispering as the door opened. Someone approached him, small and light by the sound of their stride, accompanied by another sensation, distinctive scent from a recent memory—

He had to look, wishing to avoid her gaze but obliged to meet it. "Naomi," his voice rough, "Naomi, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." As if there was any way to apologize, after failing her son so completely, as if there was any way she could ever forgive him...

Her eyes were bright as ever but filled with tears now. Face lined with sorrow; she almost looked her age, more beautiful in her grief. One graceful hand reached out, brushed the curls from her son's forehead. Then at last she looked at him, "Oh, Jim..."

He should have been the one holding her, comforting her, but it was she who put her arms around him, held him close. He wasn't crying, couldn't cry, couldn't let his eyes blur, but for a moment breath wouldn't come except in gasps, almost dry sobs. She was calm, her breath and heart even, as even as her son's, but quicker, still living.

After a few moments she released him, glanced him over. "How long have you been here?" she asked, voice steady.

"I—I don't know, a few days. Since we got Rachin."

"You have to rest," she admonished him, "eat real food, sleep a night. Restore your energies. Your aura is so dark, and so weak—you'll never find your center if you keep yourself so off-balance."

My center is gone, he wanted to say, my center is lying on that bed, lifeless and dead and never to return. Be he couldn't. Instead, "I need to stay with him, in case..."

Naomi lowered her head. "The doctors told me, and while their medicines aren't as universal as they believe, I understand what happened. There are limits to what any of us can do, what any of us can...survive." Raising her eyes again to his, "But I'm doing what he wants, and you're not—he doesn't want you dying over this, in spirit if not in flesh. I know my son, and even if he can't say so he wants you to live. I know what he means to you, but I also know what you mean to him, and I won't stand aside and let you drown. You have to step away, if he means anything to you, back away and let whatever will happen, happen. And then you have to walk on, because he wants you to, even if he can't go with you for this part of the journey.

"Jim, I never understood exactly what you had, but I know how beautiful it was, and how much Blair loved it. You'll have it again, it will be returned, some way. But not, here, you have to go by yourself. I'll help you all I can, but you have to decide, and you know how he wants you to decide. Jim, would Blair want you to spend your entire life sitting by him, when you could be in the world where you belong, living and helping others to live?"

"No," he answered thickly, because it was the truth. "No..." But he couldn't leave. Not now, not even with her watching him expectantly. Not when his partner still hung posed between life and death, waiting to fall one way or another. If he did...then he could decide. Whether to follow or to go on...but until then he had to wait, and watch. Wondering if he was doing the right thing. Wishing that he could do more.

 

* * *

He was expecting it, wasn't the least surprised to find himself awaking in Jim's room, standing before his bed. Jim glared it him, gruff as he tended to be when woken abruptly. "Yeah? Sandburg, what's up—and make it good."

"Uh—nothing. Sorry about that. I'll be getting back to bed now." He started backing up, only to have his partner's decidedly cross tone halt him.

"Nothing? What time is it, two AM? You get me up for nothing—we got work tomorrow, Sandburg, remember? We have a job to do, at which we would be far more efficient if we weren't dozing off from exhaustion."

"Man, really, I'm sorry. I think I was sleep-walking," Blair babbled, took off before Jim could complain any more. He heard him grumble something about crazy partners but the Sentinel was more interested in returning to sleep than exacting revenge.

He almost couldn't fall back asleep, laying there wondering what morning would bring, what new circumstances he would find himself in. Not real, he kept reminding himself. No matter what happens, it's not real, this is all a dream...but until he could prove that to his mind's content he didn't see any way of waking from it.

Crazy things, dreams.

Next morning he bounced out of bed, almost knocking over Jim preparing the morning brew. "Whoa, where're you heading, Chief?"

"Uh, the university?"

"Why?" Jim frowned.

"Class to teach?"

"Hold on—what's this about?" Jim demanded. "You decided to go back to that? Since when? And why is the captain even allowing it—we're not exactly in a position to take much time off right now, with this crime wave."

"Oh, yeah." He hadn't taught in a couple years, not since he had gone through the academy. Working full-time on the force didn't leave much room for socializing at Rainier, let alone teaching there. "Sorry, don't know what I was thinking."

Jim regarded his partner suspiciously. "How much sleep did you get last night?"

"Enough, enough, I'm fine," Blair assured him. "Mind just jumped tracks for a sec. Aren't we going to be late?"

Jim glanced at the clock, swore, and got moving. Ten minutes later they were at the station, fifteen after that heading for the scene of the crime in progress, bank robbery. Nothing special but the gang was organized and their arsenal formidable. Blair's own Glock felt puny compared to their semi-automatics.

Actually it felt downright unnatural. The butt didn't fit right in his hand and he was positive he was holding it wrong, tried his best not to let Jim notice. That should have been enough to prove to his subconscious that this wasn't his regular territory, but he was curious enough not to dispute it for the moment. Full partners with Jim, that was too good to give up right away. He had always wondered what it would be like.

Pretty cool, actually, right up to the point that he learned his aim was on par with a blind man's and Jim paid the price, shot three times in the chest by one of the robbers. Blair managed to hit the criminal in the leg with his fourth bullet, then ran to his partner. One of the other officers got in his way and he shoved him aside, hoped belatedly that he didn't break anything.

Jim's breathing was way off, air bubbling up through the blood filling his mouth, and more was pouring out of his chest. He gasped a couple times and then stopped, but before Blair could begin CPR the paramedics arrived and got busy with their equipment.

Simon came up to him as he stood there uncertainly watching them work. He put an arm around his shoulders, sighed, "Sandburg, there's nothing you can do now. Terrible thing, but it wasn't your fault. We'll see what happens...I can't believe it would end like this. You two are the best team we've got."

And this was the only thing that could have divided them. A partnership that nothing else could come between—so of course death intervened. He wasn't surprised by that, though he was a little taken aback by how it badly it ached. Even knowing it wasn't real, still almost physically painful, as if he had been the one shot...

If he had been, and Jim was the one standing here, instead of him...if something happened to him, how would the Sentinel react? He wasn't quite sure...but it wouldn't be good, of that he was almost positive. Jim didn't take to death well, and he didn't give up easily...

Well, neither did he. Blair drew himself up, shook off Simon's arm and glared at the knot of paramedics around his partner's prone body. Then he addressed them all, not loudly, but firmly, "No. This is just a dream."

Nothing happened, except Simon turned to him, frowning, with anger or concern it was hard to tell. "Sandburg—" he started, but Blair wouldn't let him go on.

"This is over," he stated, and was satisfied to have it all vanish upon command.

###  _"One, two, one, two, and through and through..."_

He lost himself in the slow rhythm of his partner's heart. When he counted for several minutes he realized that it was fading, slowing, gradually, but it couldn't be long now. The last chance he might ever get to hear it, and he listened until his world consisted only of the soft sound, every fiber of his body moving in tune with the tempo it set. In, out, up, down, one-two, one-two, one-two, one—

"Jim!" Something shook him, but it was the shout that snapped him free, for an instant checking the beat by which he was measuring his life.

He blinked. Vision swum into focus gradually, and only with concentration could he make out the worried features of his captain, peering into his eyes. "Jim," Simon repeated, quieter, but it was momentarily enough to keep him from falling into the heartbeat, "you look terrible, you need to sleep."

"I've rested." Nothing I can do as it is, here, now.

"You need to actually lie down. The kid would tell you so. That wasn't resting, what you were just doing now—every muscle in your body was tight. I haven't seen you zone like that...not for a while, Jim."

"I can't leave him..." He couldn't look at them, not into his friend's dark anxious eyes, and not at his partner, either, form still as it never should be, even his chest barely rising. Soon, very soon now, and nothing he could do...

"You can't do anything for him here," his captain echoed his thoughts. "Jim...there's nothing any of us can do. You have to—you have to stand up and accept that inside. There's nothing you could have done; there's nothing you can do now. Except what he would want," and he indicated the still figure on the bed, though he didn't look himself, "and that's for you to take care of yourself and keep going. You have to leave him—it's the last thing, the only thing, that you can do for him. The only thing he'd ask of you."

But—he tried to say it, couldn't. But what? How do you refute the truth? He couldn't yell at him, scream as he wanted to, shout and cry and curse everything in this bitter universe. It would serve no purpose, would not even fill the emptiness inside him, that deadness as he felt his soul fade, even as the heartbeat beside him did. No words, no actions, nothing left to use, nothing left to hold onto.

"Please go," he asked, and Simon left.

Even with him gone he had nothing to say. What would be the point, when he would never hear, never know? How could he say any of it; what did he even want to say...that you helped, that you made it worthwhile, that you gave me more than I ever thought possible, that you were my friend—what would he say even if he had the chance?

He should say good-bye, if nothing else. A last farewell.

He couldn't.

Finally he stood, silently, and walked toward the door. His legs were unsteady beneath him but he forced them to carry him regardless. Simon was waiting outside, he saw, ready to support him if he stumbled, but he had to make it that far on his own. Alone.

He reached for the doorknob. Paused and turned back again, to capture one final image in his mind, hear the heartbeat and remember the rhythm he would never hear again.

And he couldn't leave it. He stood there, listening, and it grew slower still, and fainter, and the breathing became almost nothing, and somewhere there was a distant wailing alarm and footsteps clattering toward him. He ignored them, holding his breath, waiting.

A long, flat squeal from the monitor, the cessation of the rhythm. He began to turn away.

And Blair sat up and said, "Well, this is different, at least."

 

* * *

He wasn't in Jim's bedroom. It was distinctly brighter here, and he was lying down as if he had been asleep.

Jim was the one standing instead, his mouth gaping as if he were choking on his own breath. Staring at his partner as if he were a ghost. Blair reached up, touched his forehead. Layer of cotton bandages covering it, more wrapped around his body, though he didn't feel the slightest twinge of pain. The crisp cool sheets drawn over him, the florescent lights, the medicinal smell...yes, he'd recognize a hospital room anywhere. Definitely a change.

Jim crossed the room in two long strides, flung out his arms and then hesitated as if afraid to contact his partner. "B—Blair?"

"Afraid so. Come on, I guess I got to see about finding my way out of here—"

The Sentinel's hands on his shoulders pressed him back onto the bed, gently. "Hold it there, Blair, just hold it..." Sharp blue eyes running over him like they were disbelieving what they saw.

He sighed. "All right, what happened?"

"You—I got there too late, I felt the blast, I—" He took a breath, steeled himself, drawing his shoulders back in proper military composure. "You've been hospitalized for the past week. You were badly injured in the explosion, the doctors said you wouldn't—they weren't optimistic about a recovery."

"Hold on," Blair frowned, "what explosion?"

"At the university, you were kidnapped, trapped—you called me, remember? It was Rachins, it turned out, Frank Rachins, he escaped and set a trap for you as revenge—"

He shook his head. "No, I don't remember."

"Understandable...you were hurt pretty badly. There might be..."

He trailed off, but Blair could complete the sentence easy enough. "Permanent damage. Oh man...Jim, the last thing I remember, the last thing I remember that really happened, I was in your room, and I saw..." He squinted his eyes, remembering with a flash of horror, "...you were dead, and the panther was there, or maybe the wolf, and it asked if I would save you..."

Jim was staring at him blankly. "The night before it happened...you woke me up, yelling about something, but you didn't say what. And then you went to class, and he got you somehow, put you in a basement with a bomb..."

"And I called you—" He started to remember.

No. He didn't. It was hazy, the recollection, fuzzy, like a nightmare which might have only been imagined, not even dreamt. And his head didn't hurt, not at all, it had only been a week, and from the way Jim was reacting...he prodded his ribs through the bandages. No pain. "This doesn't make sense..."

Jim stared, "What are you talking about?"

"I was in your bedroom, over and over, and now I'm here, but I didn't wake up—you didn't wake up..." Jim's body, lifeless, no breath, no pulse, trapped in a dream so deep its reality superseded the real one.

He had told the spirit guide he would save his partner. 'Then go,' it replied him, and the first dream had begun.

"This doesn't make sense—I've been here for a week? You've been here for a week?" But time was different in dreams, you could live a lifetime in a single night. "How did you find me, Jim? I called you—how could I call you, why would he leave me my celphone?"

"Because he knew I'd be too late, because he wanted me to hear..." Somewhere deep in his eyes, under the coolly logical tone, was an anguish so great that Blair's heart almost broke. This was Jim, it had to be...and he was the one in danger, he was the one who had been dying, but he hadn't known, too worried about another...

"He couldn't be that sure. How'd you find it was Rachins, Jim? How do you know?"

"We found him, we tracked him...to his hideout, and I shot him..." Slowly, painfully, as if he were groping for the memory.

"How'd you track him? Where was his hideout?"

"I don't know...there were clues, the other detectives did it. He was in a building, a warehouse, and he was going to shoot us—"

"But where was the warehouse, Jim?" He forced himself to remain calm, not to press too hard or sound too excitable. If he wrote this off to nervous exhaustion...

Too late. "Blair, you're tired, you were badly hurt, I don't know what they're giving you but I'm sure you're on a whole series of drugs. The doctors should check you out, and then you should sleep, and when you're better-rested you'll be thinking more rationally, you'll probably remember—"

"The doctors, man, where are the doctors?" He waved at the equipment, monitors beeping and flashing patiently. "Shouldn't they know by now I'm up? Why haven't they come—"

On cue Jim cocked his head, taking on the distant look of listening. "On their way, Chief."

"You know what they should find? Nothing!" His head didn't hurt at all, not the slightest ache. He had never heard of a painkiller that effective that would still leave him clear-minded. And no matter what Jim suspected of his mental state—he trusted the spirit guide. Sometimes you have to believe more than what is obvious. Not exactly a scientific perspective, but in his field it was a necessary truth.

Grabbing the wrappings, he wrenched hard and tore them off his head. "Look! Do you see anything? Is there even a bruise?"

Jim stared for so long he began to doubt himself. Then—"I don't—I saw the blood, Blair! I saw the damage, there's no way—what's going on?"

"Nothing." He could stay calmer in the face of his partner's panic. Only one of them allowed to go off at a time..."This isn't real, Jim, what's here—"

"What the hell are you talking about—"

"Everything! It's a dream, Jim, a dream—you're in your bed, I don't know what's going on, but we're in your mind, or my mind, or maybe we're both out of our minds—but this isn't happening. Not exactly. Not how it usually does. And—and you've been dreaming lately, you remember, something's been trying to get at you. Someway, somehow, you're being affected—and it could kill you. It might be killing you. We have to get out of here—"

He had gone too far, said too much. Jim was shaking his head, rationality re-asserting itself. "They misjudged your injuries," he said, "but you're still a little confused—"

"And you're still a little _dead_, unless I can convince you—" Desperately he glanced around, flailing for another clue, more evidence of the truth. And spotted—oh god. No, he hadn't enjoyed that much even in his dreams...but it would be convincing. And the doctors were coming; if they could convince Jim otherwise—he had felt this urgency before, it had been building in all the dreams, but now it exploded in him, and he trusted it, believed it. Running out of time, and this was the only way—it wasn't something that could be explained any other way, no matter how logic-bound Jim could be.

"I'll prove it," he said, and springing out of bed he launched himself toward the window. Jim was too slow to grab him.

He realized, as the glass shattered around him, that the way dreams worked this might depend as much on Jim's beliefs as his own, but by then he was already falling...

###  _"And has thou slain the Jabberwock?"_

He swore his heart stopped, and he willed time to halt as well, give him the chance to reach him, but it was too late, Blair was already through the window. He should have caught him, he had to catch him, but how could he have known, how could he have guessed? He knew he wasn't thinking rationally but he hadn't imagined, Blair was too intelligent, too bright, he couldn't be so insane, he couldn't have done this, he couldn't—

He wasn't falling.

Jim blinked, rubbed his eyes, looked again. His partner hung outside, about five feet beyond the window, not holding onto anything, hovering in empty air.

Impossible.

He still wasn't falling.

He did give Jim a thumbs-up and a tentative grin, swooped in a small semi-circle and dove back inside, sailing through the broken glass but not touching the sharp edges. He settled back on the bed a split second before an anxious doctor burst through the door, "Mr. Ellison, is Mr. Sandburg..." and trailed off when he saw his patient sitting up in bed, clearly much better.

Jim looked to him, to Blair, to the doctor again. Blair was grinning, insufferably—understandably—pleased with himself. "Thanks, man," he said to Jim, without explaining what he was talking about.

The Sentinel would have asked, but his mouth felt as if it were wired permanently open. The doctor blathered, "You should be lying down, you may feel fine but there is still extensive internal damage, this may be only temporary—" At least he didn't know of Sandburg's recent activities. Why he wasn't curious about the broken window—

Jim looked over. The window was whole, not so much as cracked pane.

Not the best time to start hallucinating here, Ellison—Blair's supposed to be the one with the brain problems..

"Oh, lay off, doc," his partner's sharp tone brought him back to some semblance of reality. Except Blair was rarely so ill-mannered. He brushed off the doctor's examination, ripped the stethoscope from his hands. "I don't need to be here and you know it. We both have to get out of here."

"Mr. Sandburg—"

"Come on, Jim." Swinging his legs off the bed he headed for the door. Certainly his confident strides were not the gait one would expect from a man who had been on the verge of death mere minutes before.

The doctor caught his arm, "Now hold on—"

"Jim." His partner's tone was calm and eminently logical. "May I borrow your gun, please?"

"Why—" He reached for his holster, then remembered, "Chief, I can't, Simon—"

"Come on, just hand it to me."

His fingers closed over its smooth grip. Trying to control the shiver traveling up and down his spine he gave it to his partner. "Blair, Simon took my weapon after I killed Rachins, and my back-up is at home..."

"Mm," Blair commented, "convenient it's here, too. Now," and he cocked it, aimed it at the doctor's head, "would you please step out of the way, doc?"

"Now—now, just stay calm—" gasped the doctor, his eyes growing wider than moons, "I want you to take a deep breath—"

Blair ignored him. "This way," and he took his partner's hand, still training the gun on the other man. In Jim's practiced eye he clearly didn't have much experience with it, but even amateurs could be dangerous, given the right armament—and motivation.

Halfway down the hall Simon stepped out of a doorway, stared at Blair and Jim behind him. "Sandburg?" he choked disbelievingly. "You're—you're awake?"

"Yup. If you'd please step aside, captain."

Gaze going from his open eyes to the gun in the observer's hand—"What's this about? What are you doing?"

"Getting us out of here—getting Jim out of here. If you care about his life—but of course you don't. You're just a dream."

"Jim?" His eyes raised to his detective. Under his breath, low enough that only Sentinel ears could hear, he whispered, "What's wrong with him?"

"Nothing's wrong with me," Blair answered, before Jim could indicate any response. He flashed another grin, tempered with nervous energy, urgency. He was so anxious to get out of here; dangerously determined, in fact. And there was no way he could have heard what Simon had said...

No way he could have flown, either, or repaired that window in the split second before the doctor had entered...The universe was topsy-turvy, and Blair was his Guide. The one who could tell up from down.

"Get out of the way, Captain," Jim said. Not Simon, this wasn't his captain, only a dream. "Let us through."

He glanced from one to the other—"No, Jim, I'm afraid—"

"Get out of the way!" The Sentinel's shout startled even himself. Blair's smile quirked up again. The florescent lights flickered and died, leaving them in a dark hall—a black, formless passage.

"Can you see anything?" Blair, sounding remarkably unfazed.

"No—no!" He strained, but there wasn't the faintest light to see by—it was daytime, there should be windows letting in the sun, emergency lighting...at the very least there should be voices, conversing about the blackout. "Simon?" he asked, but no answer came, and he could hear nothing except his pulse and the heartbeat beside him—nothing—

"He's gone. They're gone. This is more like it...at least we're nowhere," remarked Blair.

"What?"

"It's better than being somewhere that doesn't exist, right? Gotta be that much closer to reality."

"Sandburg..." He swore the invisible floor shifted beneath him, blackness spinning, nothing fixed, nothing solid, he was falling—

Hand on his arm, shaking him. "Hey, easy there, Jim. It's okay. Relax. We'll get through this."

"Blair, I...where—" He heard something moving overhead. A call like a bird's screech, and then a soft mew, he knew that animal, an ocelot, he had heard it occasionally in Peru. His hand brushed against something, cool damp leaves.

"Can you see anything?" Blair whispered. "We seem to be—do you see the black jaguar?"

"I can't see a damn—" A golden light flared into being before them, like a match being struck.

"You found me out," a gentle voice murmured. Light flickering on familiar features...

"Mom?" Blair's voice cracked.

Naomi Sandburg lowered her eyes, refusing to meet her son's gaze. She stood on soft brown earth, impossible to see what lay beyond the candle's glow. The fire lit her face and her son's wide eyes. "I'm sorry, darling, I'm so sorry. But I couldn't just stand by—I'm your mother, honey. When I realized the danger you were putting yourself in—I know you believe this is your way. But Blair, you aren't made for this."

"What—what were you doing?"

"I just wanted to show you the danger," she said wistfully. "I would never hurt you, you know. I'm sorry, Jim," and she nodded to the Sentinel. "This may have caused you some problems, but you understand...I was wrong, though. I'm sorry." She sighed. "Blair, honey, if you could just give me a minute alone with your partner..." At his curious look, "You can wake up. You know how, just slide yourself out of the dream. I want to talk with him, and this is cheaper than long-distance—there aren't any phones at the retreat anyway. And here we can truly speak our hearts."

Blair stood quiet. Jim didn't know what to say, still trying to grasp the shifting natures of this world they were in. "Please," Naomi requested again. "Just wake up. I promise, I won't hurt him. I'll come by to see you on the corporal plane soon, sweetie."

"No." Blair's refusal was steady. "I'll stay right here. Talk to him."

"I think we need to speak alone, honey."

"If you were doing this," Blair said quietly, "then why didn't Jim know your name? In the second dream, he didn't know what I was talking about. He didn't know you. Why not, Naomi? If it was you?"

"You don't understand, these were just dreams—"

"I do understand! And they're more than dreams, aren't they. There's a reality here, there's death here, and that's why you need to be alone with Jim. To convince him to leave, if I'm not here, you can convince him it's a hallucination—if he starts to believe _this_ is his life, then he'll be leaving the one he's got."

"Blair, why would I—"

"Because you're not my mother." His tone was hard, colder than a glacier. The candlelight couldn't account for all the dark shadows cast across his face—Jim blinked, saw the stripes of red and black decorating his partner's features. Chopec warpaint. And indeed his voice was a warrior's. "She wouldn't do this. She let me go my own way, and she doesn't recant on her decisions. Therefore, you are not my mother."

"Look at me, Blair," she pleaded quietly.

"I'm looking. I don't like what I see. And I don't like what you're trying to do to my partner. Let us go. Let us wake up. Both of us."

"Honey, I can't, not right away, just let me speak with him for a little while..." Tears were starting to form in the corners of her eyes, sparkling with the candle's flame.

"Release us," Blair ordered, and raised his hand. He still had Jim's gun. Now he cocked it, the metallic click echoing in the silence. Jim could hear his heart, pounding a mile a minute, betraying his illusion of calm.

"Blair, please," she whispered.

He pulled the trigger.

 

* * *

The gun bucked in his hand, the thunder of the shot reverberating through his skull. He saw her fall, scarlet springing into being on her chest, blood fountaining forth, and then the candle went out.

Dropping the weapon he fell to his knees, stomach churning. My God, my God, he wasn't sure he was saying the words aloud or in his mind, teeth clenched so tightly they ached. What did I do. My God...

"Blair—Blair, it's all right! You were right," Jim's hand on his shoulder, shaking him gently, assuring him. "That wasn't her. What you said, you were right—even if she could do something like this, she wouldn't. It was another trick..."

Or this is. Or this all is, or everything is, what is real anyway, is there any such thing, or is it all illusion? Does it matter what you do, or only what you think you've done, or only what you think, intentions or consequences, goals or actions, which matters, if anything at all—

"Blair..." Just a dream. Just a dream. It's just a dream, just a dream, just a dream—"Blair!" Jim, shaking him harder now.

He peered up into the face of his partner. Realized he still could see him, dimly lit from below. Jim was stripped to the waist, face and body streaked with warpaint. He looked like a warrior, the ancient kind, the only ones able to face this evil. And he himself still in a leather jacket and shabby blue jeans—well, it was better than pajamas, at least.

"You look ready to take it on," he mumbled. Whatever it is.

"So do you," Jim returned, and Blair frowned, wondering what he could mean. "Chief, I need you for this one—you seem to know the only way out of here."

"No, I don't, I don't know anything about this place, I don't know what I'm doing—"

"Sh," Jim shut him up. "This is some sort of dream realm, or spirit plane, I've picked up that much. Which you need a shaman to get through, Incacha taught me. And you're the only shaman at hand. You've done so much—we must be getting close, Blair, can you manage a little more?"

He couldn't betray that confidence. "I'll try," and he accepted Jim's hand up. "Where—"

It was as if a wind began blowing; he felt himself pulled away, or perhaps it was Jim being dragged into the abyss, but at any rate they were separated. He lunged forward and their fingertips touched, but then the walls came up.

Without pausing to think he began to run, letting his feet carry him to his Sentinel. After a few moments he realized it was pointless; he didn't seem to be going anywhere. On the off-chance that he was in fact heading toward some destination he continued at a more sedate pace. Thinking this through.

Was something, someone behind it? Not Naomi, certainly. But was this random chance or a standard Sentinel test—or was this something different, something deliberately imposed by an outside source? Something that wanted to separate him and Jim...or kill Jim...something that wanted to hurt them. Couldn't attack directly so it strove to drive them apart in more subtle ways...something that knew them, had met them before, and understood how to attack them. Something that could take on different forms, become different people...

Oh no. Oh God. He fought down the bile rising in his throat. Stop thinking crazy, Sandburg.

Around him the way began to take shape, walls rising solid around him. He was walking down stairs, up stairs, down them again.

A door opened and Naomi was there, chest covered in blood, eyes wide and staring as she faintly gasped, "Why honey, why?"

"Get out of my way or I'll do it again," he growled, raising the gun, and trying to keep his hand from trembling.

But she faded, and the door closed in front of her.

He rounded a corner and Frank Rachins was standing in the hall, glaring at him narrowly and rapping the barrel of his gun against his palm. "I had the perfect plan, and you blew it," he snarled.

"Nope, sorry, you're still in prison," Blair informed him, and strode past without looking back. Rachins grabbed for him but he didn't flinch, and his hand never touched.

Garrett Kincaid blocked his way, and then the Iceman, and he held his breath passing both to keep himself from shaking as he exhaled. Nightmares all, but the next...

Tall, blonde, graceful, beautiful. Alex Barnes tossed back her hair and smiled. "Think you could escape?" she purred. "I'm sorry I had to do this, but I have no choice."

"I just bet you don't." Was he supposed to pass her? Could he? There didn't seem to be anywhere to go, a wall behind her. Walls on all side, but they were spreading out, the nebulous passage clarifying into a room. Large chamber, high ceiling...

"You are the weakest link," she informed him, "but strong enough, just strong enough to hold him in place. I want him. I need your partner, Blair. If you go now I won't follow. Otherwise..."

"Abandon Jim to you? Like hell," he scoffed. "Wouldn't before and I won't now." He hoped his bravado sounded convincing to her ears, because it sure didn't to his own. "Get out of here, Alex. You're not behind this, you're just another illusion."

"Yes, I am," she hissed. "Who else would know how to get around the spirit plane?"

"Lots of people, apparently," Blair snapped back. "And I don't think I've seen the real one yet. Keep trying—and get out of here!"

"You sure it isn't me, Sandburg?" At the deep voice Blair spun around to face Simon Banks. The captain scowled down at him, menacing and enormous. "You're a liability to the force, and you've been messing with my best detective."

"Bzzt, nope, sorry, next," Blair shouted over the pounding of his heart. "Maybe three years ago, but I know my friends—and Simon's one of the best."

Shadows blotted out Banks's form, then a soft murmur and he immediately cried, "No _way_, you've tried Naomi twice—I'm not going for a third time," raising the gun to back up his words. How many bullets did he have left—doesn't matter, Sandburg, as many as you need. Just be sure to keep that in mind...

"Sandburger! Sandburger!" yelled a burly kid in a backwards baseball cap, swinging his fists at Blair's temple. He ducked easily, grabbed the boy's wrist and bent back. The kid, shrieking, fell to his knees.

Blair rolled his eyes. "Childhood bullies—you really are plumbing the depths of my psyche now, aren't you? Come on, you can do better than that."

They came in quick succession, Warren Chapel, Lee Brackett, Dawson Quinn, monsters all, and he jumped out of the path of their charges and let them surround him. They couldn't do anything, he wouldn't let them, and then they all were gone.

Alone in the room he turned cautiously, waited. It was dark, shadows obscuring what forms there might be, but something familiar in this place.

"Blair." Jim's voice. The Sentinel stepped from a corner, step slow and calm. "Didn't think you'd make it this far."

"What, man?"

"Through all the barriers—you're better than I had hoped. But you did it."

"Did what?" He narrowed his eyes, trying to see past the lie to the truth. "You aren't Ellison."

"It's me, Blair," Jim assured him. "This is...a test. For a shaman to pass, the Sentinel has to know—and you've passed. Like I thought you would. Like I knew you would. All you need to do now is wake up and it'll be over, you'll have won."

"No way, man." He laughed shakily. "Like I'm supposed to believe you—I've seen you before. You aren't Jim. You're like everyone else here—wearing a mask over your true face, and it's the same face behind all of them, just different voices, different disguises. I want to see the real Jim."

"Blair, I'm right here."

"Like hell." You're the shaman, Sandburg. This is your realm. So take control. He raised his voice, raised his eyes over the false Sentinel. "Jim, I want you here. _Now_!"

"Sandburg?" If he didn't know better he'd swear Jim sounded afraid. His partner flashed into being in the center of the room. He was imprisoned, strapped to a low table, a chair, it wasn't clear, not among all the shadows. Let there be light—

And there was, candles springing up like mushrooms, bathing everything in gold. Flames reaching up, higher, higher, into beings, demons, the fire people—

He dropped the gun. It hadn't done much good against them before. "Stay back!"

But they advanced all the same, clawed hands bent into talons reaching for him, round mouths in burnt faces wailing as they approached. They ignored Jim in the center of the room; in front of him the false Jim burned, flesh melting off bone until he was another demon, all coming for him—

No. There wasn't any Golden here, and there were no demons, and it was all in his mind anyway. Definitely he'd gotten better, delved into the heart of terror—"That the best you can do?" he cried. "There's one nightmare you've avoided, there's one nightmare you haven't shown me yet!"

"Sandburg, get out of here!" Jim shouted. "Just get out now, I'll deal with it!"

Sounded like Jim, too. He'd take even odds that he'd summoned the real Ellison. Ignoring him, "Why haven't you taken that guise? Why not, you have to know it, it's on the top of my mind! You've gotten in there before, so why avoid this?"

The demons were shrinking back into candles, dripping wax onto the rough floor.

"There's someone there, I know there is, someone who's been behind all of this," Blair said, turning a slow circle to examine every corner of the room. Things hanging from the ceiling, a bizarre montage of junk and mementos. "Someone who's manipulated me—you're trying to separate us. You're trying to get to Jim—do you want to take him where you are? Drag him down to hell with you?

"Or are you after me? Or both of us?" Mural on the wall, an epic, prophetic disaster. "You've appeared as everyone. Even as Jim to me," indicating his partner. "You're good at disguise, at taking on another's form, another's voice, and mannerisms, and attitudes. You almost fooled me several times, make me think the dream is reality, make me think my life is fiction."

There was a single demon standing in the far end of the room, smoke rising from his charred body. His flames were dwindling, form shrinking as he listened.

"You didn't play me for very long though, did you?" Blair murmured. "Only a bit, to make Jim think I was dead, and then I was just a simulacrum on that hospital bed. Until I broke through to Jim's mind. Why didn't you play me? When you wanted to be me?"

"I can't be you!" the demon screamed, the monster screamed. And he was a man, small, blond hair and sharp nose. No disguises, no tricks. David Lash.

Blair wiped his hands on his jeans, grateful they were dark—imaginary or not, his palms were soaked with sweat. "No, you can't. And you can't be Jim, if that's what you were trying..."

"You can't even imagine what I was trying. You can't even imagine what I am doing," the man snarled, stalking forward.

Blair took an involuntary step back. "No deal," and he prayed his voice wasn't wavering as badly as he thought it was. "You're dead and gone, you can't do anything."

Lash offered him a twisted smile. "You can't even imagine what's been like," he said in a sing-song. "What has happened to me. What I've learned from it. What he's learned." He reached Jim, touched his forehead with one long finger. "What he will learn. He'll understand—I'll understand. And we'll be happy, we'll have a good time, you and I, Blair, being him, me being him, I am him, I am Jim. I told you—" His features were changing, and so were those of the man on the chair's, so that the one strapped down began to resemble Lash and the man standing looked like the Sentinel.

"No!" Blair commanded, and everything was back as it was. "I'm not gonna let you have him."

"Then we'll have to be somebody else," whispered the killer.

He was tied down, he couldn't move. Lash was coming at him, head cocked obliquely and curiosity dancing in his eyes as he observed his prey. Blair tried to raise his arms, fend him off, but they were strapped to the dentist's chair, and Lash had a vial in one hand, ready to pour the drug down his throat. He could taste the tranquilizer and he could feel the water filling his mouth, choking his lungs, couldn't breath, head forced under—

"Jim!" he screamed. But Jim couldn't do anything, Jim was strapped to the chair beside him—

Jim had saved him before. He would now. "JIM!" and though he was gagged the cry was loud and clear. And Jim was free. He made it so.

The gun he dropped, the Sentinel could find it. Lash had forgotten it. You have the gun, Jim, use it—

He did. Once, twice, again and again and again, the shots thundering in rapid succession. They had been distant before; now they were close, inches away.

Lash flipped back, staggered upright, staring down at his chest, at the blood beginning to flow. Blair pushed and the bonds snapped, and he was standing, facing him eye to eye.

"Sorry, man," the shaman gasped, "you're dead."

Lash's eyes widened, his mouth opening in a scream that never sounded, because the world fractured around them. They were falling and he couldn't fly this time, there was no ground to avoid.

He reached out, caught Jim's flailing hand and shouted over the wind, "Can you hear me?"

The Sentinel nodded, mouthed something back that Blair couldn't make out. "Wake up, Jim!" he called instead. "Wake up!" He sure as hell wasn't waking without him, not after everything.

Jim nodded, and then, like that, he was gone, as if he had simply stopped existing. Blair could feel it, like a hole, an absence. On his own now, in his own mind. He took a breath of darkness. Centered himself, assured his unconscious mind that it was all a dream, and set off an alarm clock in his mind. Okay, I've had enough of this.

A scream of rage great enough to rent the world in two.

Total void, darker and deeper than the center of a black hole.

He opened his eyes.

###  _"'Twas brillig..."_

Jim jerked awake. He heard a heartbeat thundering a few feet in front of him. Looked over, saw Sandburg at the foot of his bed, soaked in sweat and breathing like he'd just run a one second mile.

"...Chief?"

"Thanks for the quick save there, Jim," Blair panted, smiling broadly before he collapsed into a boneless heap on the floor.

 

* * *

"You sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine, Jim," Blair promised his Sentinel.

Ellison opened his mouth as if he were going to repeat the question—again—then closed it when his partner rolled his eyes. Blair was grateful for that; he was running out of creative answers to the query and growing bored with the standard reassurances. Bad enough he felt like a schoolboy home sick for the day; he didn't need Jim playing Dr. Mom, thermometer in one hand and OJ in the other.

Since he didn't seem to have much choice in the matter he settled into it. Days off came few and far between with the schedule he kept, and it wasn't as if he were actually sick, or Jim for that matter—Jim had just used the excuse as a way to give them the rest they had missed the night before. They had both slept quite comfortably, and now he was reading in bed and feeling ten again. To continue the illusion he had even grabbed one of his old kid books off the shelf.

Of course it wasn't really for children, though he remembered liking _Through the Looking Glass_ well enough when he was young. Been too long since he had read a book with pictures, drawings that weren't so much as labeled 'Figure 5', 'Table 24'. If he ever wrote a novel he'd find someone to illustrate it, he decided. Maybe the dissertation could use a few pen and ink sketches...

"Blair!"

Guiltily he started out of his meandering thoughts and met Jim's gaze. "Sorry, just thinking."

"So have I." Jim fidgeted by the door.

Blair recognized the signs. Lowering his book he waved his partner over. "Come on, man, talk. You can't keep everything all bottled up—you have a mind, it's too late to hide it from me. What's on it?"

"Was any of it real?"

"What, last night?"

Jim nodded, clearly uncomfortable as anything. He didn't like it when he didn't understand things, and he was intelligent enough to realize when he didn't understand. And it scared him, not an emotion an Army Ranger always could handle.

Well, that's what partners were for. Blair couldn't help but feel a little honored—a whole lot honored, actually, that Jim was willing to come to him at all. And a bit proud; he had worked hard enough to establish that trust, after all. "Honestly, what happened? I have no idea. Though since my first philosophy class I've had a hell of a time figuring out what's real anyway. If anything.

"But what you said last night, and what I said—we saw the same things, well, more or less. We experienced the same events—okay, we didn't, but we were still in the same frame of reference, you follow? We both saw something, underwent something. As far as I'm concerned, it's real. At least it was for us. And that's what's important."

Jim stood perfectly still for a moment, then shook his head. "No, I'm not following, Chief."

Blair sighed. He had been dreading this, dreading trying to explain it—he hadn't even wanted to think about it. They had won, as far as he could tell. That was what was truly important. Everything else...well, as long as it never happened again...

No way Jim would be content with that. "I don't actually know," he admitted. "I have no idea what happened, or if it happened...well, something happened. That's 'true', at least, in some manner of speaking. We both remember; we both know it.

"As to what...I dunno." Shrugging to emphasize his point. "If it actually was...Lash..." He shivered involuntarily.

""Hey, Chief." Jim slung a companionable arm over his shoulders. "Don't know if it'll make you feel any better, but I saw him too. And I saw you, with warpaint all over your face, shouting him down. And more. You would've scared _me_, Sandburg—remind me not to go up against a shaman anytime soon."

"No need, man, you got one right here."

"Yeah." Jim smiled, not widely but with feeling. "About that—last night, when I woke up, before you...fell back asleep—"

"Passed out, you mean."

"Yeah. I remember you thanking me, for going after him like that, I think. It seems to me that I should be the one with the gratitude—thank you, Blair. For...everything." He clapped his friend on the shoulder. "Thanks for being there. And here. Whenever, wherever I need you, partner. Thanks."

"Uh—you're welcome, man. Thank you, too."

Jim's eyes roved about, searched for some way to break the mood, found it. Lighting on the book, "So, what are you reading there?"

Eagerly he snapped up the line. "Just something on my shelf—it's the sequel to _Alice_, you know, in Wonderland? Lewis Carroll's masterpieces. Naomi bought me my own copies when I was eight—leather bound, the Tenniel illustrations, everything. Mom understands good books." He smiled. "Listen, my favorite part—_'Twas brillig, and the slithey toves/ Did gyre and gimble in the wabe./ All mimsy were the borogoves/ And the mome rathes outgrabe—_"

"What the heck are you saying?"

"'Jabberwocky'--you've never heard it? The White King's nonsense poem."

"It sounds a little familiar, and I know the word—but what were you reading? What language is that?"

Blair grinned. "It's not supposed to make sense, that was his point in writing it. Lewis Carroll's point, not the White King's. He liked playing with English, all the words sound real but they don't mean anything. But you can still understand what's going on—John Tenniel even managed to draw a picture, see?"

Jim blinked at the page thrust under his noise. "So that's a Jabberwocky?"

"A Jabberwock. Yup." Blair turned the book back around, examining the ridiculously long claws and woodchuck teeth of Tenniel's dragon-like creature. "You know, when I was little—don't laugh—this drawing frightened me. The first time I saw it, I must have been only five or six, I turned the page and wouldn't look at it again, because it scared me. Only I kept flipping back to it, glanced at it fast, looked away again—I liked it because it frightened me, I guess. Or maybe I wanted to prove I wasn't actually that terrified of it, that I could stand up to it."

"Hm." Jim raised his eyebrows skeptically. "You were scared of a picture?"

"No teasing, man, I was young!"

"So what happened, since I don't see you cowering now?"

"Well..." Blair tapped the book cover thoughtfully. "One day I looked at it, and I noticed something I hadn't noticed before—if you actually look it's pretty obvious. The Jabberwock is wearing a vest."

"A what?" He looked, saw the row of buttons down the monster's chest.

"Yup, a vest. Spats, too, on its feet. After that, well, it was kind of hard to take it seriously." He sighed heavily. "Another childhood illusion shattered..."

Jim cuffed him lightly. "Only you, Sandburg."

"Ow, hey! It's an embarrassing discovery for a kid, to realize your nightmares are somebody else's joke! I admit I slept better knowing it, though."

The Sentinel chuckled. "You're definitely a real one, Blair. All I can say is...I'm glad you're on my side. And I'm on yours. Enjoy the book, Chief," and he left, still grinning.

Blair breathed a silent sigh of relief, glad the conversation had turned before it had entered more uncomfortable areas. Such as the nature of reality and fantasy, mind and imagination. It had always disturbed him in class—he hadn't taken much philosophy for that very reason. He enjoyed it even less when it was a matter of experience.

Fortunately most of his memories seemed to be fading, as dreams do. Jim too seemed surprisingly disinclined to dwell on what had past. It also didn't seem to have occurred to him, what Blair had thought of when he had first awoken that morning.

How did he know that he had in fact woken up? What proof did he have that he—that they—weren't still dreaming?

Well, everything seemed back to normal. Nothing seriously altered in the universe around them. And Jim remembered everything just as Blair had, which was comforting even if it truthfully proved nothing. If there was no perceivable difference, and he was okay, and Jim was okay, then did it really matter? He pinched himself. Felt real enough. So go with it.

Flipping to the end of the book, he read the last phrase of the final poem aloud, softly enough that Jim probably couldn't hear. Then, feeling somehow reassured, he turned back and continued reading, "Beware the Jabberwock...", losing himself in the fiction. Worlds within worlds of words and images and ideas, and he maneuvered through them all contentedly. This was his domain, after all. As a student. As a scholar. As a shaman...though he tried not to think about the last too much. And life went on.

_"Ever drifting down the stream—  
Lingering in the golden gleam—  
Life, what is it but a dream?"_

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that's that...
> 
> Confessions of an author—a little autobiographical bit at the end; Tenniel's illustration for "Jabberwocky" scared the bejeezus out of me when I was little, at least until I noticed the vest. What can I say; those claws are scary—and the beastie itself is _weird_!
> 
> As was this story, I realize...hope you enjoyed it anyway. Like I said, one of my favorite poems...and I'm not planning to do anything based on Poe's "The Raven" so you're safe from another one of these!
> 
> Big thanx and cyberhugs to beta's Reysolo and Signe, you guys rock! =) If you did like it, please leave a comment—I'd love to know! Thank you, O gracious reader, and have a frabjous day!


End file.
